Recipes for the Feast at the Hunt for the Michaelmas Goose

Medieval Goose

This feast was designed to serve 50. The recipes below are generally scaled for 4-8. There was no kitchen on site other than what we brought or built, and no running water, so this was a less elaborate feast than many. It was designed to be ovo-lacto vegetarian friendly.

Meats and Condiments

Gees with Sawse Madame
(Roast Goose and Current Middle Ages Swan with fruit stuffing and Galantyne sauce)

Take sawge, persel, ysope and saveray, quinces and peeres, garlek and grapes, and fylle the gees therwith; and sowe the hole that no grece come out, and roost hem wel, and kepe the grece that fallith thereof. Take galyntyne and grece and do in a possynet. When the gees buth rosted ynowh, take hem of and smyte hem on pecys, and take that that is withinne and do it in a possynet and put therinne wyne, if it be to thyk; do therto powdour of galyngale, powdour douce, and salt and boyle the sawse, and desse the gees in disshes and lay the sewe onward.
p. 50 Traveling Dysshes (serves 8-10 for feast)
Siobhan Medhbh, Forme of Curye, 1390, England & France; #96 Pleyn Delit
As it turned out, we merely roasted the geese and turkey... did not stuff or sauce them. One goose and 3 turkey breasts (CMA Swan) was sufficient for the crowd.

1 Goose

Stuffing:
1 tsp each dried sage, parsley, hyssop (or mint), and savory
2 small hard pears, peeled, cored, and chopped
2-3 quinces (or sharp apples), peeled, cored, and chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, mashed or minced fine
1 to 1 ½ cups seedless grapes
Sauce:
¼ cup (½ cup) dry breadcrumbs
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp galingale or ginger
¼ cup (½ cup wine) vinegar
¼ cup (1/3 cup) red wine
½ tsp salt
¼ cup (1/8 cup) goosefat drippings

In a bowl mix the fruit, dried herbs and garlic. Stuff the bird with this mixture, and sew or skewer the opening shut. Roast at 325 on a rack in an open pan for 30 minutes per pound. (We roasted the birds on Weber grills). Pour off the fat as it accumulates and set aside.
While the bird is cooking, soak the bread crumbs in the vinegar. When the bird is done, mix together the bread crumbs, remaining spices, wine and about 1/8 cup (up to ¼ cup) of the drippings from the bird. Whisk smooth, salt to taste.
Pour over the bird; serve it forth.

Viaunde of Cypres Ryalle
Cold Chicken Mincemeat

Take the braun of capounes or of hennes ysothe or rosted and bray it in a morter small as myed bred, and take good almound melk lyed with amodyn or with floure of rys & colour it with safroun and boyle it wel. & carge it with rosted braun,and sesn with honey and salt, and florsche it with maces and quibybes.
p. 51 Traveling Dysshes (serves 8-10 at feast or 4-6 as entree)
Multiply by 4 for enough for the feast. This was done the day before at a kitchen in town, and kept in a cooler.
Caellyn FitzHugh, Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books,1430-1450, England and France
Traveling Dysshes (see http://www.innercite.com/~patmcg/disshes.html). Highly Recommended that you get this book.

4 cups cooked chopped chicken
1 cup white wine
¼ cup sugar
½ cup honey
½ tsp each ground cloves, mace, ginger
¼ cup ground almonds
½ cup currants

Boil the wine and sugar together for ten minutes or until it thickens and clings to the spoon. Add honey, spices, and raisins, and boil for another 5 minutes.
Arrange the cold cooked chicken in your serving dishes. Pour the hot syrup over the chicken. Chill well; serve cold.

Bratwurst and Buns

Lumbard Mustard

Take mustard seed and waisshe it, & drye it in an ovene. Grynde it drye; sarse it thurgh a sarse. Clarifie hony with wyne & vyneger, and stere it wel togedre and make it thikke ynowgh & whan thou wilt spende therof make it thynne with wyne.
#33 Pleyn Delit

¼ cup clear honey
2 oz finely ground dried mustard
1 tbsp wine vinegar
3 tbsp red wine
1/8 tsp mixed spices (ginger and cinnamon)

Warm honey, then mix all ingredients together. Note that the sauce will be far more liquid when it is still warm than it will be when it cools to room temperature.

Vegetables and Meatless Dishes

Grilled Mushrooms and Onions

Cariota
Roasted Carrots with Oil and Vinegar Dressing

Roast carrots in the coals, then peel them, cleaning off the ashes, and cut them up. Put in a dish with oil, vinegar and a bit of wine; scatter a few mild herbs on the top. (Platina)
#40 Pleyn Delit (serves 4-6)

1 lb carrots (8 medium large)
2-3 tbsp olive oil
2-3 tsp white wine vinegar
2-3 tsp white wine
2-3 tbsp chopped herbs:
parsley and a pinch each of any other fresh mild green herbs: dill, chives, tarragon, thyme, marjoram)
salt and pepper to taste

Scrub and scrape carrots, and brush lightly with oil. Either roast in a 400 oven or arrange in one layer in a suitable dish for microwaving and microwave at full power, uncovered, 15 minutes. (In the great outdoors, we used a big disposable aluminum foil pan, put in a little water and butter to keep them from burning covered the top with foil and and stuck the pan on the grill where the brats were cooked. They need an 1 hour and 45 minutes to grill.) Slice into a serving dish and dress with minced herbs, oil, vinegar, wine and salt and pepper to taste.

Hildegarde's Lentil Pottage

This was doubled to serve the feast. The first two steps (onion/cabbage and lentils) were done that morning at a kitchen in town. The soup was then made on a camp stove that afternoon.

2 tbl butter
2 tbl olive oil
4 cups sliced onions
1/4 head cabbage shredded (or part of a bag)
**
10 cups water
2 cup lentils
**
6 cups water
6 cubes chicken or vegetable bouillon
1 cup rice (uncooked)
1 ½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon pepper

In the dutch oven over a slow heat, heat butter and olive oil until butter melts. Add onion and cabbage and cook slowly about 20 minutes stirring occasionally. You want the onions browned (carmelizing but not burnt!). Set them aside.
At the same time, bring water and lentils to boiling, cover and simmer about 20 minutes. Drain the lentils and set aside.
Put 6 cups water and the bouillon cubes in in the stew pot. Dump in the lentils and onions and cabbage, add rice and spices. Cover and cook over a slow fire until the rice has absorbed water and cooked (it should still be soupy).

Spinach Tart

Goodman p. 278/23 -"A Tart" (GOOD)
To make a tart, take four handfuls of beet leaves, two handfuls of parsley, a handful of chervil, a sprig of fennel and two handful of spinach, and pick them over and wash them in cold water, then cut them up very small; then bray with two sorts of cheese, to wit a hard and a medium, and then add eggs thereto, yolks and whites, and bray them in the cheese; then put the herbs into the mortar and bray all together and also put therein some fine powder. Or instead of this have ready brayed in the mortar two heads of ginger and onto this bray your cheese, eggs and herbs and then cast old cheese scraped or grated onto the herbs and take it to the oven and then have your tart made and eat it hot.
from Cariadoc's Miscellany. The Miscellany is Copyright(c) by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook, 1988, 1990, 1992.
This recipe makes two tarts which is sufficient in the context of this feast, (if you precut it into slices) as not everyone will take some. This was made ahead of time and frozen.

1/3 pound spinach, chopped
1/2 cup parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons chervil, dried
1 teaspoon fennel seed, ground in a mortar
5 eggs
1/2 pound cheddar cheese
1/2 pound mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 pie shells (9")

Bake pie crust for 10 minutes at 400.
Chop or grate spinach and parsley.
Grate cheese.
Mix filling ingredients in a bowl.
Put filling in crust and bake about 40 minutes at 350.

Tart in Ymbre day

Tart in Ymbre day. (Curye on Inglysch, Forme of Cury recipe # 173, page 136) Take and perboile oynoun & erbis & presse out the water & hewe hem smale. Take grene chese & bray it in a morter, and temper it up with ayren. Do therto butter, safroun & salt, & raisouns corouns, & a litel sugur with powdour douce, and bake it in a trap, & serve it forth.
[Take and parboil onion[s] and herbs, and press out the water, and chop them small. Take green cheese and grind it in a mortar, and temper it up with eggs. Add butter, saffron,and salt, and currants, and a little sugar with powder douce, and bake it in an open crust, and serve it forth.]
from Angharad ver' Rhuawn (see http://www.cottagesoft.com/~jtn/Culinary/Articles/tart.html)
This recipe makes two tarts which is sufficient in the context of this feast, (if you precut it into slices) as not everyone will take some. This was made ahead of time and frozen.

4 onions
4 eggs
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 pound havarti cheese, grated
1/2 pound muenster cheese, grated
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup currants
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/3 cup parsley
2 pie shells (9" deep dish)

Chop the onions. Parboil them (about 10 minutes), remove heat, and drain. Chop parsley. Grate cheese. Add butter to thoroughly drained onions, then mix in the rest of the ingredients.
Pour into pie shells. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes (top will be brown; a knife inserted into the top should come out clean).

Desserts

Roasted Apples with Sweet Spices (in Foil)

makes 48 apples. Those not consumed are really good the next morning for breakfast.

6 3 lb. bags of (small) apples
1 1/8 cup butter - this is 2 1/4 sticks
1 7/8 cup honey (or brown sugar if you prefer)
3 3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground mace
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups raisins
Lemon juice
32 feet aluminum foil

Prep at home: Make a tupperware of "honey butter" per measurements above. Mix in spices, walnuts and raisins. This goes to cooler.
Prep for cooking: Core each apple almost to the bottom; discard core and seeds. Remove a thin strip of peel from top of each apple; sprinkle with lemon juice. Fill cavity of apple with fruited nutted honey butter. Wrap in tinfoil.
Cooking: Cook on grill approximately an hour.

Circletes - Almond Cardamom Cakes

p. 29 Lady Therica Pembroke of Stonegate Manor

1 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon grated lemon peel
¾ teaspoon ground cardamom
½ cup finely slivered or ground almonds
1 cup raisins

Cream the butter and blend in the sugar, beating until frothy. Whip in the egg. Add all the dry ingredients together and add to the sweetened butter. Chill the dough for one hour. Coat cookie sheets with butter and form the chilled dough into approximated one inch balls with well-floured fingers. Place the dough balls about one inch apart on the cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until done a golden brown.

Shrewsbury cakes

Take a quart of very fine flower, eight ounces of fine sugar beaten and cersed, twelve ounces of sweete butter, a Nutmegge grated, two or three spoonefuls of damaske rosewater, worke all these together with your hands as hard as you can for the space of halfe an houre, then roule it in little round Cakes, about the thicknesse of three shillings one upon another, then take a silver Cup or a glasse some foure or three inches over, and cut the cakes in them, then strow some flower upon white papers & lay upon them, and bake them in an Oven as hotte as for Manchet, set up your lid till you may tell a hundredth, then you shall see the white, if any of them rise up clap them downe with some cleane thing, and if your Oven be not too hot set up your lid againe, and in a quarter of an houre they will be baked enough, but in any case take heede your Oven be not too hot, for they must not looke browne but white, and so draw them foorth & lay them one upon another till they bee could, and you may keep them halfe a yeare the new baked are best.
Sallets, Humbles & Shrewsbery Cakes, Ruth Anne Beebe
Henry of Maldon, from message in http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/campfood-msg.html
makes ~ 4 dozen small cookies or 18 large cookies

1 stick (1/4 lb.) butter
1 1/2 cups sifted white flour
3/8 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon (Ceylon cinnamon if you can get it)
a little rosewater, to taste (1/4 tsp)
up to 2 tbsp water

Cream the butter and the sugar. Add rosewater, and blend thoroughly. Sift together the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt, and stir into the butter just until all the ingredients are moistened and the dough holds together. Add a bit of flour or water if needed to make a dough that is thick, firm, but not quite stiff.
Turn it out onto a floured board and roll it out to a thickness of ¼" (large) or 1/8" (small). Cut round cookies 3" in diameter (or larger). You can flatten balls of dough right in the pan and then trim -- if the dough is just thick enough the trimmed edges will pull off. Place them on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake at barely over 325 degrees (Fahrenheit) for about 15 minutes, or until crisp and dry but not browned. If there are dark blisters on top, see if the oven is set to preheat or broil. They might smell funny as they bake, but they taste good once they've cooled off. If you want to be really precise, bake 10 minutes at 350 and 10 minutes at 300. Remove the cookies to a rack and allow them to cool. The cookies are best when fresh, but will keep well in a tightly covered jar.

Ordinary Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes about 5 dozen cookies.

2 ¼ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12 oz pkg) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake in preheated 375 oven for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.


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Updated December 2, 1998